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61* 13 



JUN16 



MI1M01MAL ADDRESS 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



HON. CHARLES MARSH, LI, D, 



UKAI) I'.KrOUK TIIK 



VERMONT IIISTIIKICAI, S0C1 



IN J 1 1 K HKI'HKSKNTATIVKS' HAL 



OCTOBER 11, 1870, 



JAMES BARRETT, L.L. I >.. 



JTJUOK (il THK St PltKMH comn 




Published pursuant i" ■' resolution ol Hi<- LeglNl.ttun 



M(> N T PEL] E It : 

JOURNAL BTEAM l'IU\TI\<; EST ABLI8HMBNT. 

1871. 






MEMORIAL ADDRESS 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



HON. CHARLES MARSH, LI, D.. 



READ HEI'OiU: THE 



VERMONT HISTORICAL SOI [ETY, 



IN THE REPRESENTATIVES' HALL, 



OCTOBER 11, 1870, 



JAMES BARRETT,. LL. D., 



JUDCE OF THE SUPREME COURT. 



Published pursuant to a resolution of the Legislature. 



MONTPELIE R : 

JOURNAL STEAM PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 

L871. 



f '- 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President: — I see by the public announcemenl thai 

the designated service for this evening is " the Annual 
Address.' 1 I have prepared myself to respond to this 
announcement only by reading a memorial paper. 

But before proceeding, it seems fitting that 1 should allude 
to the bereavement which this Society has recently experi- 
enced in the sudden and untimely death of its President,* 
who was also, for all the years of his manhood, one of its 
most earnest and efficient members, officers, and workers. 
This event, following so soon upon the death of his worthy 
and distinguished predecessor f in the presidential office — 
his friend and most zealous and successful co-worker in real- 
izing to the public the peculiar purposes which the Society 
was designed to serve, — is doubly potent as a cause for sor- 
row, and doubly potent as an admonition to the living, how 
certain is death, and how uncertain the continuance of life 
and work on earth. In such an hour as he thought not, 
even as a thief in the night, the Son of Man came. May 
the li\ ing lay it to heart. 

While to the rising and middle aged generations of the 
present day in this State the names of Allen, and Chitten- 

* George F. Houghton, Esq. fRev. Pliny II. White. 



den, and Baker, and Warner, and Robinson, are familiar as 
designating prominent and historic characters in the scenes 
and deeds that brought into organized and distinctive exist- 
ence, as a body politic, what ultimately became a member of 
the American Union as the State of Vermont, there are 
other names, now hardly known to fame, that designated 
men whose life and deeds entered largely into the rudi- 
nicntal growth and fruitful maturity of the State, as it now 
stands forth in its excellence of character. 

The emergencies, springing from the colonial complica- 
tions between New York and New Hampshire in reference 
to the territory now constituting Vermont, required the defi- 
ant boldness, the judicious shrewdness, the fruitful adroit- 
ness, the unflinching persistence, and the obdurate fortitude 
that characterized and distinguished the men whom I have 
named and their prominent associates. But when those 
emergencies had been so far solved that Vermont had estab- 
lished its independence as a State, and as such could fulfil 
its functions only by establishing social order upon the 
foundations of law, then it was that the class of men to 
whom I secondly referred, but did not name, became as 
important and serviceable as the former class had been. 
The former founded the State as a political organization. 
The latter developed its capabilities, through legislation and 
judicial administration, for realizing to the dwellers within 
its borders the beneficent results for which it was designed 
by its founders. The State, as a political organization of 
constitutional basis and frame-work merely, is of nothing 
worth. It is only when it ordains and administers law that 
it becomes a vitalized and active power for the common 



weal. To the mosl casual reflection it is obvious that the 
law in its administration — the law, as the prescribed rule of 
th«' right, duty and liability of every human being within 
the State, in reference both to person and property, in all 
the relations and enterprises of associated life — is the sole 
instrumentality by which the government acts in the accom- 
plishment of the purposes tnr which it lias existence. The 
makers and ministers of law supervene upon the makers of 
constitutions of government. The former give practical 
operation and effect to the work which the latter have 
brought forth. 

When Vermont first assumed an independent existence 
upon the ltasis of a constitution of government in 1777, the 
then present object of chief interest was to continue and 
consummate successful resistance to the claims and course 
of New York in reference to the New Hampshire Grants. 
This continued for several years, during which little atten- 
tion was given to the general and special legislation, and to 
the establishment of a systematic and well considered body 
of jurisprudence, such as was necessary, and would be ade- 
quate, to tic upbuilding, consolidation and improvement in 
social prosperity and cultivation of the entire body of the 
people as their numbers should increase and their wants he 
multiplied. This is fully illustrated by the fact that the 
constitution of 1777 was not submitted to any action of the 
people after having been adopted by the convention at 
Windsor; by the fact — to modern minds somewhat amusing 
— that the legislature, in 177'.'. solemnly enacted that the 
constitution — that constitution under which the legislature 
had been elected and was then assembled and ac'/intr — " shall 



6 

be forever considered, held and maintained as part of the laws 
of this State"; — rather a marked instance of the stream 
undertaking to rise higher than its fountain spring. Again, 
in 1782, in the words of the preamble : " To prevent dis- 
putes respecting the legal force of the constitution of this 
State, and to determine who are entitled to the general priv- 
ileges of the constitution and laws," the legislature proceeded 
to re-enact, with some additions, the act of 1779 just recited. 
It is further illustrated by the fact that the laws passed at 
several successive sessions of the legislature were declared 
to be temporary, and to remain in force only till the rising 
of the next session thereafter. 

The meagre, crude, and fragmentary character of the 
law, as well as the meagerness of the ideas of the then con- 
trolling minds in reference to law, as the rule of the rights, 
duties, and liabilities of all the subjects of the government, 
could not be made more palpable than by an enactment of 
1779 — a part of which I cite, as follows: 

"That no man's life shall be taken away; no man's honor or 
good name be stained ; no man's person shall be arrested, re- 
strained, banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished ; no man 
shall be deprived of his wife or children ; no man's goods or es- 
tates shall be taken away from him, nor any ways endamaged, 
under color of law, or countenance of authority, unless it be by 
some express law of. this State warranting the same, established 
by the General Assembly ; or, in delect of such law, in any par- 
ticular case, by some plain rule, warranted by the word of God.'' 

"Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That common 
law. as it is generally practiced and understood in the New Eng- 
land States, he and is hereby established as the common law of 
this State." 



In such a condition of the law, both statutory and com- 
mon, in a State aol then a member of the Union, and in 
controversy with New York as to the right and fad of sep- 
arate existence, and with New Hampshire as to territorial 

limits on the East, the population of which was largely 
spiced with persons who had left their homes in other Prov- 
inces and States as a measure of safety to themselves, as 
well as for the good of the countries they had left, and in 
such condition and habits of mind — such views, purposes 
and modes as characterized the aggregate of the inhabitants, 
the field was by no means the most inviting to educated pro- 
fessional men. Yet that field was most urgently needing 
men of study and cultivation in general learning, as well as 
in the particular department of the law, — men of clear 
moral apprehensions and strong moral convictions — men of 
uprightness and integrity, of effective force of intellect and 
will in behalf of the right in law and morals, to be exerted 
in efforts, judiciously directed, to the bringing order out of 
confusion, and to resolve the prevailing chaos into a law es- 
tablished, law governed, and God tearing State. 

At an early day, and an opportune time, such men began 
to appear in the persons of Stephen R. Bradley, Stephen 
Jacob, Nathaniel Chipman, Amasa Paine, Daniel Buck, Dan- 
iel Chipman, Charles Marsh, Asa Aldis, and others, their 
cotemporaries and co-workers. To them belonged the 
work of asserting for the State the law in its true signifi- 
cance — the law as a system based on principles of justice 
and equity, as embodied in the common law of England, 
but to be modified, adapted, and supplemented by wise legis- 



8 

lation, and all to be so done and administered as to serve 
all the needs of the young, crude, restless and growing 
State ; and that work they did both wisely and well. 

For the present occasion I am to speak particularly of 
one of that class of men — Charles Marsh. 

I trust I shall not be thought to have transcended proper 
limits if I range somewhat beyond merely the personal biog- 
raphy of one who was so conspicuous in his day as a law- 
yer and a citizen — derived in maternal ancestry from Major 
John Mason, famous in the early scenes of Connecticut his- 
tory — a cousin, in the same line, of Jeremiah Mason, the 
greatest of New England lawyers — a son of Joseph Marsh, 
of Hartford, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Vermont, — 
an uncle of President and Professor James Marsh, the most 
eminent of American ethical and theological philosophers, 
and of Dr. Leonard Marsh, recently deceased, one of the 
most learned classical, scientific and professional scholars of 
his day — and father of George P. Marsh, the statesman, di- 
plomatist, and author, and, in all departments of human 
learning, accorded the first rank by the learned both of this 
country and of Europe. As the object of my being called to 
my present duty is that I may contribute somewhat in further- 
ance of the proper ends of this association as the Vermont 
Historical Society, and in view of the great honor that has 
been brought to the State by those who have borne, and 
still bear, the illustrious name of Marsh, all vitalized by the 
same family blood, I trust I shall not weary by some detail 
of personal statistics. 





Mr. Marsh was born in Lebanon, Conn., July LO, 1765. 
lie was a descendant of John Marsh, who emigrated from 
England to the colony of Massachusetts in 1633, and removed 
from that colony with the Rev. Mr. Booker and his congre- 
gation to commence the settlement of Hartford, Conn., in 
1635. John Marsh married Anne, a daughter of Deputy 
Governor (or assistant ) John Webster, ami by her be had a 
numerous family. He survived her, and married for second 
wife the widow of Richard Lyman, of Northampton, Mass., 
by whom also he had children. Most of his immediate de- 
fendants remained in Hartford and its vicinity, with an in- 
heritance of an extensive Landed estate. John Marsh's 
grandson, Joseph, removed in 1697 to Lebanon, Conn., and 
there resided till his death. For many years lie held prom- 
inent and influential positions in that region. He had a son 
Joseph, who also spent his life in Lebanon. The second 
Joseph also had a son Joseph, who was the father of Charles 
— the subject of my present reading. That third Joseph — 
the father of Charles — also resided in the same town, ex- 
cept for a short time, till, in 1773, he removed to Hartford, 
Vermont, wdie re he -ettled upon land he luiil purchased, and 
the same that now constitutes the farm of lion. John Porter, 
a little below Qaeeche Village. He had also purchased 
other extensive tracts in Hartford, and in neighboring 
towns. 

Having had much experience in business and public 
affairs in the colony of Connecticut, upon removing to 
Vermont he at once became interested and active in the 
questions and controversies thai were agitating the embryo 



10 

State, and was soon called to stations of trust and responsi- 
bility. For a while he seems to have sympathized somewhat 
with those who favored the jurisdiction of New York. In 
1776, he was twice chosen a delegate for the county of Cum- 
berland to the Provincial Congress of New York. That 
county then included the greater part of what are now Wind- 
ham and Windsor counties, and portions of Rutland and 
Bennington. It appears, however, that he was not present 
at the sessions of that Congress, except for a short time in 
the summer of that year. Notwithstanding that early ten- 
dency, he nevertheless favored and sustained the establish- 
ment of an independent State Government, and under it 
was elected the first Lieutenant-Governor. In the same year, 
1776, he was commissioned Colonel of the Northern, or " Up- 
per Regiment," (as it was then designated,) of Cumberland 
county. In the year 1777, on the call of Gen. Schuyler 
for reinforcements for Gen. St. Clair, when Burgoyne w"as 
approaching Ticonderoga, Col. Marsh marched thither with 
the quota required from his regiment. But the fortress had 
been evacuated before he was able to reach St. Clair's army. 

I have recently received a letter from the Hon. Roswell 
Marsh, of Steubenville, Ohio, a grandson of Governor Joseph 
Marsh, who was born and brought up in the same family 
with his grandfather, and was eighteen years old when his 
grandfather died in 1811. From his recollection of conver- 
sations in the family, in which the grandfather, with various 
other persons, freely participated, touching the early events 
of revolutionary and state history, he is certain that his 
grandfather, who was then the colonel of a militia regiment, 



11 

was presenl and took part in the battle of BenniDgton, as 
were also two of his brothers and one of his suns. Mr. 
Marsh's memory and convictions arc entitled to greal reli- 
ance, lie is one of the marked men of the family, and has 
been for many years one of the ablesl and most honored 
men of the Ohio bar. He has recently retired from profes- 
sional practice with public demonstrations of reverence and 
respeel for his ability and his worth. I have the memoran- 
dum of a note from Governor Had. in which he say? he 
thinks thai Col. Marsh was not at that battle, but that he 
may have been subsequently in the service on the Hudson. 
1 propose to file Mr. Marsh's letter, or a copy of it. in the 
archives of this Society. It is valuable as a graphic memo- 
rial sketch of its distinguished subject. (See Appendix.) 

Alter the battle of Bennington, Colonel Marsh aided 
in the rear of the army of Burgoyne in cutting off' his com- 
munication with Canada. 

Although Colonel Marsh had been somewhat identified 
with the interests of New-York, he was a member of the 
convention that met at Windsor on the 4th of dime. 1777, 
and which elaborately set forth the reasons for separating 
Vermont from New-York, the members re-affirming the 
Declaration of Independence made at Westminster in the 
next previous January, and solemnly pledging themselves to 
each other to maintain their new and independent state 
organization, and to resist by force of arms the fleets and 
armies of Great Britain. At this convention the name of 
the State was changed from " New Connecticut " to Ver- 
mont. He was also elected a member of the convention 



12 

which adopted the State Constitution, at Windsor, on the 3d 
-^-4th of July of the same year. 

Colonel Marsh represented Hartford in the first General 
Assembly under the State Constitution, in 1778. He had 
been the same year a candidate on the popular vote for the 
office of Lieutenant-Governor. On the meeting of the Legis- 
lature, a count was made of the votes for State officers while 
the returns were incomplete. Upon that count it was suit- 
posed that he had not been elected. Thereupon the Assem- 
bly proceeded to elect him to that office. It turned out, 
however, that he had in fact been elected by the people. 
By virtue of that office he was President of the Court of 
Confiscation for the eastern half of the State. At the next 
October session, the Assembly discarded the towns on the 
New Hampshire side of Connecticut river that had been 
admitted to a union with Vermont by the vote of a majority 
of the towns in Vermont and the vote of the Assembly in 
June of that year. Governor Marsh regarded that action 
to be a breach of faith, and he opposed and protested against 
it. In consequence of a change in public sentiment on that 
subject, he was not elected Lieutenant-Governor the next year. 
He was, however, elected to that office in 1787, 17»8, and 
1789. In the interim he represented Hartford several years 
in the General Assembly. He was also for twelve years 
chief judge of Windsor County Court. In addition to his 
official note, he was widely known as an active and consis- 
tent Christian, and a liberal supporter of the religious and 
benevolent objects of his day. He died at the age of 
eighty-five years, honored and long remembered for his 



13 

noble character, and his life of vigorous activity and effec- 
tive beneficence. His home in Hartford was the scene of 
a hearty and generous hospitality, and was the birthplace 

of a large family of children and grandchildren, an g 

whom were the James, and Leonard, and Roswell, already 
named. 

As before intimated, Charles .Marsh, on the maternal 
side, was descended from Major John Mason, who, in 1731, or 
1732, emigrated from England to Dorchester, in Massachu- 
setts. After -hurt residences in several places in thai colony 
and in Connecticut, he settled permanently in Norwich. Con- 
necticut. For many years he took a conspicuous pari in the 
civil and military affairs of the Colony. He was entrusted 
with the enterprise of putting a quietus upon the terrific and 
troublesome Pequot Indians, and he did it in the most effec- 
tual and lasting manner. 

Colonel Jeremiah Mason, of Lebanon, Connecticut, and 

his sister Dorothy, were of his descendants. Colonel . Jere- 
miah was the father of the eminent lawyer of the same name 
who died in Boston in November, 1848, at the age of eighty 
years. Dorothy, in 1750, became the wife of our Governor 
Joseph Marsh, and fifteen years later she became the mother 
of Charles, our present theme, who was the senior of his 
cousin Jeremiah .Mason by about three years. In many 
mental ami professional traits they bore a strong like 
Throughout their long lives they kepi up the mosl friendly 
and intimate intercourse. 

When his father removed to Hartford, in 1773, Charles 
was a feeble hoy. ami thought to be unable to endure the 



14 

first year of border life in the forests of New Connecticut, 
as Vermont was then called. He was therefore left in the 
family of his sister, Mrs. Rockwell, in Lebanon, till the next 
year. He was then carried on horseback behind his mother 
to the family home in Hartford. In reply to some question- 
ing of mine, he once humorously said that when the family 
moved to Vermont, he was so puny he was thought to be 
not worth the bringing, and so he was left behind for a year. 
He was then brought on ; but proving worthless for any 
practical use at home, he was sent to college. 

Mr. Marsh established himself in Woodstock in 1789. In 
178G the legislature had designated Woodstock as the shire 
of Windsor county. In 1787 it was enacted that the courts 
should be held at Windsor till the court-house should be 
built by the inhabitants of Woodstock to the acceptance of 
the judges of the county court. In 1790 it was enacted 
that the courts should sit alternately at- Windsor and Wood- 
stock, with this curious proviso : " Provided always, and 
this grant is upon this express condition, that the court- 
house in said Woodstock, and the court-house in said Wind- 
sor, shall be finished by the respective towns, free of any 
expense to said county, and furnished with good iron stoves, 
to the acceptance of the judges of the supreme court, be- 
fore the next stated term of that court in said county." A 
somewhat singular contingency on which to leave the matter 
of having any courts at all in the county to depend. In 
1791 it was enacted that the act making said two shires 
should remain in force for three years after the passing of 
the same, after which Woodstock should be and remain as 
the shire town in said county. 



L5 

Whon Woodstock was first designated as the shire, what 
now constitutes the main and most beautiful portions of the 
village was owned by Oapt. Lsrael Richardson, and was 
called his farm. 

On the 29th of .May, 1787, he conveyed to the county, by 
metes and bounds, what are now the public grounds and park 
in that village. In the meantime the building of a court- 
house was in progress, and hail proceeded so far as to ena- 
ble courts to be held in it : but before it was finished it was 
burned in 1791. Thereupon another was built upon a dif- 
ferent location. In 1789, within what, is now the village, 
besides the rudiments of a court-house, the only buildings 
were a tavern, put up by Capt. Richardson, " t.> accommo- 
date court folks" — four dwelling-houses, a dilapidated grist 
and saw-mill that had been I milt in 177G — and a 30 by 40 
feet barn, in which Rev. Aaron Hutchinson, father of the 
late chief judge Titus Hutchinson, gathered the first church 
in town. All that constitutes Elm street and it- contiguous 
grounds and houselots, was an unbroken forest, and re- 
mained such for a little while after, when it was purchased 
by -Mr. Marsh for £1000, and opened for improvement. 

On going to Woodstock in 1789, and for a portion of that 
year, while he was building a dwelling-house for himself on 
the north side of Queeche River, near where he built his 
brick mansion in L805, L806, and 1807, he boarded at a 
farm-house about a mile out of tin' present limits of the vil- 
lage. He goi to his office by a route of more than two 
miles — twice crossing the river — once by a ford way. and 
walking over a road with here and there a dwelling-ho 



16 

on lands that were in the beginnings of being converted into 
farms. In the early years of his professional life his place 
of worship was a log meeting-house on the summit of a hill, 
outside of the limits of the village, and some three-fourths of 
a mile from his dwelling-house. The Rev. Mr. Daman, an 
orthodox congrcgationalist, was the minister. At this pe- 
riod the principal part of the population of the town was in 
the southern and western sections — the village being in the 
north-eastern, and near the north line. Such, in brief, was 
the local habitation to which Mr. Marsh resorted as a young 
lawyer, with the fortunes of a life for himself, a youthful 
wife and prospective family depending on the man he was, 
and should prove himself to be. 

By recurring to the dockets of the courts in Windsor 
county in 1790, it appears that the leading lawyers in the 
county were Stephen Jacob and Amasa Paine of Windsor, 
and Daniel Buck of Norwich. Several other established 
lawyers, some residing in, and some out of the county, were 
doing more or less of the business. On the old docket of 
the May term of the county court of that year, Mr. Marsh's 
name is entered in eighteen of one hundred and thirty-five 
cases. On the docket of new entries his name appears for 
the plaintiff in sixteen of the seventy-nine cases, and for the 
defendant in five cases. The names of Chipman, Bradley, 
and Tyler appear occasionally — being Nathaniel Chipman, 
Stephen R. Bradley, and Royal Tyler — all then prominent 
in the profession, and afterwards in official life. The county 
court was then composed of Gov. Joseph Marsh — father of 
Charles — Chief Judge, Elias Weld and Elijah Robinson, 



17 

Assistant Judges. The supreme courl from October, L789, 
to October, L791, was composed of Nathaniel Chipman, 
Noah Smith, and Samuel Knight. 

From such beginnings Mr. Marsh and the county seat grew 
apace. The establishment of the shire was matter of strong 
controversy between tin- interests that favored the older 

r 

town of Windsor on the one hand, and Woodstock on the 
other. The act of 1786, designating Woodstock as the shire, 
did not quiet the matter, as is evinced by the subsequent 
Legislation already referred to, c »ntinuing down to 1791. 
In the controversy that was on foot when Mr. Marsh located 
himself in Woodstock he at once vigorously enlisted. He 
told me that one object he had iu making his home in Wood- 
stock was to do what, and the utmost that he could to 
establish the county seat in that place, and to build up a 
village that would be eligible and pleasant to reside in as a 
home. Woodstock as the county seat, and as a village for 
residence and business, hears witness, in its history and 
character, to the success that attended the efforts in.tl 
respects, in which Mr. Marsh was recognized by all as the 
Leading man. 

The fact may not be without interest that the inte 
tion of the Legislature was invoked to enable Mr. Marsh to 
get admitted to the Bar in Vermont. By an act of 1787 
no person could be licensed by either the County or Supreme 
Court to practice law in this State, unless he had previously 
studied three years with a licensed attorney of the S 
and on examination by the Court — a deduction of one year 
3 



18 

beiDg made in case the applicant had obtained the degree of 
Bachelor of Arts in some university or college. Various 
surmises were rife as to the motives of some leading law- 
yers in the State, who had prompted the enactment of that 
provision of the law. On graduating at Dartmouth College, 
in 1786, Mr. Marsh went at once to the celebrated law 
school of Tapping Reeve, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Excuse 
the interpolation of an incident. His outfit was an old 
mare, saddle, and bridle, with which to perform the jour- 
ney, and three dollars in money, with which to pay the 
expenses, and they were adequate to both purposes. The 
extent of his wardrobe may be inferred from the fact that 
after arriving and taking up his quarters in a family for 
board, the woman of the house noticed that he constantly 
wore his surtout. On asking why he did not lay it off, she 
was frankly informed that it was the only coat he had. The 
old mare, saddle, and bridle, were turned to the account of 
paying expenses at the school. 

After completing the prescribed course of study in that 
school, he was admitted to the Bar in the State of Connecti- 
cut. On returning home in the fall of 1788, he found that 
the law regulating the admission of attorneys, as it existed 
when he left home under the statute of 1779, had been 
changed by the act of 1787, and that he was thereby 
excluded from the Bar of Vermont until he should have 
studied two years more with some licensed attorney in this 
State. This becoming known to prominent men in Windsor 
and Orange counties, a vigorous memorial was preferred to 
the Legislature at the October session of 1788, whereupon 



19 

the following ad was passed. Mr. Marsh was examined 
and admitted to the Bar soon after its passage. 

•■ Passed Oct. 17th, L788." -"An acl to operate as a proviso to an 
act, entitled an act for the appointmenl and regulating attorneys 
and pleadings al the bar. 

•• Wh ■ ts Charles Marsh, of Hartford, in the county oi Wind- 
sor,and State of Vermont, after having acquired a public education 
with a view ofbecoming an attorney-at-law in this State, has been 
at expenses of a regular course of study of law in the stale of 
Connecticut, and has there hern admitted an attorney at the bar : 
Ami whereas, since the said Marsh commenced the study of law as 
aforesaid, an act has been passed prohibiting the admission of 
attorneys in the State, unless they shall have studied a certain 
time with a practicing attorney in this stale : 

"T It is hereby enacted by the General Assembly of the 

Stite of Vermont, thai nothing in thai clause of said acl referred 
to in the preamble of thiv act, shall be construed to extend to said 
Marsh, bu1 any of the Courts in the State are herein- impowered 
to admit and appoint him a regular attorney-at-law, agreeable to 
the known rules and customs of such Court, any thing in said acl 
contained to the contrary notwithstanding." 

Mr. Marsh graduated at the age of twenty-one years. Tie 
was admitted to the Bar in his twenty-fourth year, and set- 
tled in Woodstock as before stated. 

I am aide to allude to only two facts as indicating his 
character and standing as a student in college. In his col- 
lege days the Valedictory Orator was chosen by the graduat- 
ing class, Mr. Marsh and Asahel Huntington were the 
only candidates for the honor. Huntington was elected by 
the casting \ ote of Mr. Marsh. 

The other fact is (and it was told me by Mr. .Marsh him- 
self) that he was deputed by the students of Dartmouth to 
obtain from Harvard College a charter for the New-Hainp- 



20 

shire Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Dartmouth 
College. To do this he performed the journey from Hano- 
ver to Cambridge on horseback. That Alpha was organized 
in 1787, and he was one of the six, out of a class of twenty- 
five, that were elected members of the Society. Then, as 
now, the rule was that only one-third of any class should be 
eligible ^ — that third to be selected with reference to rank 
and ability as scholars. Of him as a student in the law 
school, I know of no traditions. By his favor T am the for- 
tunate owner of several volumes of manuscript; exercises 
and notes written by himself, as part of the course of his 
instruction and training as a student of the law. They 
show that the law was taught as a systematized science, 
in its principles, technical rules, and practice, and that in 
the entire course, he was most faithful, laborious, and pains- 
taking. 

His rapid rise to a commanding position in the courts of 
the county, as well as his appointment (the first in the State) 
to the office of District Attorney, by President Washington 
— which office he held till Mr. Jefferson came into the Pres- 
idential chair — indicate very pointedly, that both as a stu- 
dent and a young practitioner, he assiduously prosecuted 
and successfully mastered the learning of the law. 

At an unusually early period of his life as a lawyer, he 
came to take rank with the most eminent ability of the bar, 
and his services were sought in nearly all parts of the State 
in the most important litigation, both in the courts of the 
State and of the United States. As he was approaching 
the maturity of his manhood, he was recognized as primus 



21 

inter purrs, and for many years the firsl rank was accorded 
to li i m by general consent. 

He, however, was subjected to the common lot and fair of 
mere professional ability and rank in this country, and, to 
a large extent, in all countrie's, a^ shown and attained in the 
practice of the law. The lawyer's efforts are made in the 
service of his client, in private consultation, in secluded 
study and investigation, in elaborate and tedious prepara- 
tion. His open displays are made in the unthronged forum 
of the court-room. Often his most masterly strokes of power 
and exhibitions of learning are only witnessed by an audi- 
ence made up of the judges, the opposing conn -id. sometimes 
the anxious parties, a lew indifferent lawyers, and equally few 
less appreciative and more indifferent laymen. Sometimes, 
indeed, he has the good fortune of a larger audience, when 
some exciting cause of wider interest call- in the crowd to 
witness a jury trial. But even then the interest is confined 
to that audience. It dies with the occasion. Tin' only rec- 
ord or memorial of the effort made, and the ability displayed, 
is the evanescent impression produced upon those who wit- 
nessed it : and that, beyond the time and the occa ion, 
passes at mosl into a vague tradition that hardly survives to 
the next generation. 

Having Ween the -indent, ami for a year the partner of 
Mi-. Marsh, and intimate in my association with him for the 
last ten year- of his life. 1 had an interest to avail myself of 
opportunities for learning what I could of his professional 
career and character, — and what 1 could of the character- 
izing incidents and features of his efforts as a lawyer. 



22 

When I became his student, in August, 1839, he was 
passing through his seventy-fourth year. While I remained 
in his office he was engaged mainly in a few cases of impor- 
tance in the Supreme Court and Court of Chancery. 

He participated in a few jury trials, but did not take the 
burden and responsibility of putting in the evidence and 
making the leading argument. His last great argument to a 
jury was made for the plaintiff in June, 1839, when he was a 
month less than seventy-four yea us of age. It was in the fa- 
mous slander suit of Skinner v. Grant — a Universalist against 
a Baptist clergyman. He encountered, as leading counsel for 
the defendant, Hon. Samuel S. Phelps, who had recently 
passed from the Bench of the Supreme Court to the Senate 
of the United States, and who was then in the primal matu- 
rity of his. wonderful intellectual powers, and was the fore- 
most man of his generation at the Bar of Vermont. The 
venerable barrister bore from the field the wreath of vic- 
tory, while the younger combatant retired with honorable 
wounds, but aching from the blows he received in return for 
those he gave. 

For the three years and more of my occupancy of the same 
office with him, Mr. Marsh was habitually at his office table 
in his armed rocking-chair soon after breakfast, and 
remained till the hour for dinner, and again soon after 
dinner, and remained till the hour for tea. When not 
occupied "with some matter of business, he was reading the 
current public journals, or making interesting and instruc- 
tive conversation on important subjects, and especially sub- 
jects appertaining to the law, remarking largely upon the 



23 

legislative and judicial history of the State, and interspers- 
ing graphic sketches of the marked men of tli<* bar and 
bench, and illustrating by incident and anecdote. During 
that period, Judge Collamer was a member of the Supn 
Court. His residence was near Mr. Marsh's office. When 
at home in vacation, it was his custom to frequent the office 
and discuss with Mr. Marsh the cases before the ('nun. and 
thus gel the benefit of Ids suggestions and views upon im- 
portant subjects of the law. 

From all my sources of knowledge and judgment, 1 may 
confidently say that Mr. Marsh was endowed with the high- 
est order and best quality of intellectual gifts, and that they 
were faithfully developed and cultivated by the studies and 
discipline of the besl classical and professional schools of 
his day. and were further continuously developed and culti- 
vated, sharpened, and refined, by the most studious, system- 
atic, and vigorous pursuit of the law by him as a practitioner. 
For breadth and profoundness of comprehension, for keen- 
ness and subtilty of discrimination, for rapidity and justness 
of analysis, for clearness, strength, and force of logical ar- 
gumentation, for effectiveness in advocacy, as well as for a 
thorough, appreciative, and practical familiarity with all the 
artificial technicalities of the law, he was long recognized by 
bench and War as having no superior, and. for all those qual- 
ities in combination, as having no equal. 

His lawyer-hip wasofa type ami quality that are less prev- 
alent in recent than in former times. It was the result of a 
profound study and masiery of the law. not only in its defin- 
itions, propositions, rules, and technicalities, but in its prin- 



24 

ciples, and reasons, and logic, — a study that not only stored 
the mind with knowledge, but trained it to the most patient 
application, to the largest and most facile comprehension, 
to astuteness in discrimination and distinction, to subtilty 
and point in reasoning, — a study where a knowledge of the 
law was necessary in order to enable one to get tolerably on 
in practice, — where knowledge ■ and mental effort were not 
substituted by digests, and leading cases, and specific trea- 
tises, and reports whose name is legion, to which resort is 
had for some pat dictum, or some case in point. Then the 
library of most country practitioners contained no digest but 
Comyn's, few text-books but Coke on Littleton, Bacon's 
Abridgement, Hale's or Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown, and 
Blackstone's Commentaries ; no books on Pleadings but 
some brief hand-book of practice, Lillies' Entries, and Saun- 
ders' Reports. A comparison of the Bar in past generations 
with it in the present suffices for commentary as to the prac- 
tical result of the modes of achieving the old lawyership 
and the new, and indicates quite decisively which mode has 
produced the abler, larger, more reliable, more accomplished, 
and higher style of professional men. 

In legal drafting and special pleadings he was a consum- 
mate master. I was told by the late Chief Judge Royce, 
who knew Mr. Marsh well in the zenith of his professional 
eminence, that not unfrequently the court would advise less 
skilled lawyers, whose cases had got swamped in the entan- 
glements of inartificial* pleading, to seek the aid of Mr. 
Marsh in extricating and putting them in technical form and 
on the proper footing, and that he never failed of doing it in 



25 

the best manner. For the characterizing qualities thus indi- 
cated, he attained and held his high position in the estimation 
of the profession and the courts. The more general appre- 
ciation of him, however, was due to his marked qualities as 
an advocate. In these modern days it can hardly be un- 
derstood that the most effective advocate that the bar of the 
State has produced, (unless perhaps David Edmunds, in his 
brief and brilliant career, be excepted as his peer,) wag 
hardly ever known to address a court or jury in a speech of 
an hour long. It can hardly be understood that he never 
undertook to play the orator, or to tickle untutored ears, or 
astonish rustic minds by the utterance of things beautiful 
aud grand, with momentous emphasis, and thrilling modula- 
tions. His voice was small, almost feeble. The audience 
had to listen to understand what he was saying. He talked 
to the court and jury only, not heeding anybody outside. 
He talked quietly and without any considerable gesticula- 
tion. What there was of gesture was mainly by a signifi- 
cant and almost speaking use of the forefinger of his right 
hand. He addressed himself to courts and juries for the 
sole purpose of securing the verdict and judgment for his 
client. He mainly spoke to their understandings, reason, 
and judgment, with such adaptations to their emotional na- 
ture as would be likely to facilitate their arrival at the re- 
sult he desired. The explanation of his short addresses is, 
that he selected as the subject of discussion only the points 
that would control in the decision to be made. The minor 
and less material points he never presented himself, dot 
replied to when presented by his adversary. He took his 
4 



26 

stand upon the fewest points possible, and trusted the result 
to his success in maintaining them. He presented the case, 
thus eliminated of all its trashy margin of bewildering du- 
biosity to the easy comprehension of the tribunal, and urged 
his views with a force of logic and a plausibility of reason 
that, in great measure, excluded from the judging minds 
he was addressing the entertainment of any counter views 
of the case. Clear in his own views, he presented them so 
clearly and with such point, that other minds were clear in 
their apprehension of them ; and what they so clearly saw 
and appreciated, they would be very likely to be satisfied 
with adopting and acting on, rather than on other views, 
more vague, less clear, less clearly apprehended, and of 
course less influential, and less reliable as the basis of a find- 
ing and decision of the matters in controversy. Judge Royce 
once told me of an instance quite in point, of which he was 
witness and participant. After the close of the last war 
with Great Britain, not a few of the leading business men 
of the State sought to improve their fortunes by illicit trade 
with Canada. The result was that, under Judge Hutchin- 
son, as United States District Attorney, several of them 
were prosecuted at the same time. Each retained some 
leading member of the bar as his counsel for advice and de- 
fence. In this way most of the eminent lawyers of the State 
were thus employed, Judge Royce and Mr. Marsh being of 
the number. As the respective clients stood in the same 
peril, and upon the same grounds of law and evidence, they 
and their counsel put heads together and made common 
cause in the matter of defense. The cases were to be 
brought on for trial at a term of the United States Court 



27 

at Windsor. The accused with their counsel all appeared. 
It was understood that the District Attorney was to bring 
on a particular case for trial, as a test case. Thereupon 
counsel held a consultation to arrange the Held management 
of the battle. Mr. Marsh was selected to make the argu- 
ment for the defense. The trial proceeded. The evidence 
seemed to be ample for securing a conviction. The District 
A.ttorney opened the argument to the jury with exulting con- 
fidence. When he sat down, said Judge R., the jury seemed 
to have sealed their verdict; and when Mr. Marsh arose 
they seemed to say to him by their manner that they did not 
feel complimented by his undertaking to argue in defence. 
He said that himself and his associates were wondering 
what Mr. Marsh could say upon the evidence by way of ar- 
gument against a conviction of the respondent. He, how- 
ever, began, and had not proceeded long when one juryman 
and then another began to show attention, and the audience 
began to grow hushed. Soon the attention of the jury be- 
came absorbed and eager, as also did that of court and bar 
and audience. The jurymen leaned forward in their seats. 
Their eyes became kindled and strained, and their mouths 
ajar. lie went through his speech and sat down. Judge 
Hutchinson arose to reply, but he had been completely un- 
horsed by the argument of Mr. Marsh, lie was unable to 
collect and bring his ideas to bear. He made a few inco- 
herent remarks and sat down — virtually abandoning his case 
as in a kind of despair. After a brief charge from the 
court, the jury retired ; but they soon returned with a ver- 
dict of not guilty. 



28 

I venture to relate another instance, in which Mr. Marsh 
once said to me that his argument was the most satisfactory 
to himself of any he ever made. A Mrs. Lamphear and 
her son were jointly indicted for the murder of the son's 
wife. The belief was general that they were guilty of the 
act, and a large proportion of the community had fore- 
doomed them to the gallows. 

They were very poor, and very degraded and despicable ; 
and this seemed to give point and conclusive force in the 
public mind to whatever might be construed into evidence 
of their guilt. They had in vain sought the aid of the law- 
yers in the county, who were accustomed to conduct trials 
in court. Such was Mr. Marsh's character and standing; 
that they had not ventured to apply to him. He heard of 
their inability to procure the aid of counsel, and the reason 
intimated was the force of public sentiment against the 
accused. Thereupon he volunteered to defend them. 

The day of trial came, and the court-house and the town 
were thronged by the multitudes, who were interested to aid 
by their presence in securing the conviction of those whose 
guilt was in their minds beyond a doubt. The trial was 
long and tedious, and through the whole the clamor for their 
condemnation was brought to bear to influence the result. 
The evidence was closed and the argument was made in 
behalf of the State. The Court took its recess for dinner. 
Mr. Marsh made his argument for the defence on the com- 
ing in of the Court in the afternoon. His first object was 
to counteract in the minds of the jury the outside pressure 
and influence of the strong prejudice and clamor against the 
respondents. 



29 

T have authentic knowledge of his opening sentences. 
Said he, 

"Gentlemen of the Jury, I know thai my client- are p ■ and 

mean, wicked and criminal, and thai they ought to be hung. I 
have qo manner of doubl that they have done enough a thousand 
times over richly to entitle them to the gallows. But, gentlemen, 
thai is qoI the question. 

"They stand charged before you with having done a specific 
act : and you sit there under the oath of God to say from the evi- 
dence given you in court, whether you find beyond a reasonable 
dpubl that they have done thai specific acl : and if you, in passing 
upon thai question, permit any consideration aside from the evi- 
dence given you in courl to influence you in the slightesl degree 
in the verdict you shall n-nder. you will as richly deserve the state 
prison as they deserve the gallows." 

This pretty distinctly presented to the minds of the Jury 
their position and their duty. Eow different in its effect 
from what would have been any deprecation of the preva- 
lent clamor, or attempted apology or extenuation for the 
despicable character of his clients. After that opening, he 
proceeded to argue the case upon the evidence, as bearing 
upon the real matter in issue under the indictme it. The 
accused were acquitted; and it was afterwards universally 
conceded that the acquittal was right. 

Excuse me for relating another instance. 

In the latter days of Judge Collamer's practice, before 
going upon the Bench in 1833, and when he had succeeded 
to the leadership, from which Mr. Marsh was receding as 
old age was supervening upon his great powers, he was 
employed to take the burden of defending a person indicted 
for a grave offence. Mr. Marsh was called in as advisory 
counsel. It was a case of great importance and interest. 



30 

Mr. Marsh, however, was not expected, nor was he expect- 
ing, to take part-in the argument. Nevertheless, after the 
evidence was closed, Judge Collamer requested him to make 
some remarks by way of opening the defence to the jury. 
He consented to do so, and proceeded with one of his brief 
and characteristic arguments. I was told of the scene by a 
very intelligent and appreciative witness of it. As Mr. 
Marsh was proceeding, Judge Collamer sat looking intently 
and unconsciously into Mr. Marsh's face — his own becoming 
pale and eager. The crowded audience were hushed, every 
one inclining forward as if almost drawn from his seat by 
the intensity of his interest and emotion — some sobbing, 
and all in tears. At the close, Judge Collamer arose, and 
said to the jury that he had expected to address them in 
behalf of his client, but after the argument that had just 
been made, he could not pardon himself if he should 
imperil his client's cause by attempting to add anything by 
way of argument in his defence, and then resumed his seat. 

Let these instances suffice for specific illustration ; but 
pardon another reference to Judge Royce. 

In a protracted conversation, with which he favored me a 
few years ago, he dwelt particularly upon Mr. Marsh's pro- 
fessional qualities and character, and illustrated them by 
relating many incidents that had fallen within his own per- 
sonal observation. He said that, for resources and adroit- 
ness in conducting the trial of a cause, he surpassed any 
lawyer he ever knew, — that he had seen instances in which, 
as the trial was proceeding, the current seemed to be irre-, 
sistible against him, and his defeat was seeming certain, 



31 

when, all at once, as if by some magical sleight, the current 
would Ik' reversed, and bear bira to a successful result. 
And he said, in summing up, that what was very rare and 
remarkable, Mr. Marsh equally excelled in every depart- 
ment of the law ; and, taken for all in all, as a practitioner 
of the law. he was the ablesl man lie had ever known, either 
in the >iair or out of it. 

Those who knew Judge Royce — how judicious and judi- 
cial he was in all his views and opinions, how discriminat- 
ing and how jti^t. ami at the same time how free from 
enthusiasm in his favorable judgments of men. will regard 
his judgment concerning .Mi-. Marsh as entitled to confidence 
and respect. 

1 turn now to say something of Mr. Marsh in his personal, 
as distinguished from his professional character. Possessing 
such strength, and scope, and brilliancy of mind as are in- 
dicated by his great professional ability and success, he was 
not merely a lawyer. Though not distinguished for his at- 
tainments in science or refinement in literary culture, he was 
largely conversant with all subjects that would grace the 
high-bred lawyer and citizen, who felt an impelling interest, 
and took an active part in everything that affected the na- 
tion, the -late, the church, and society. His cast and habits 
of mind led him in the direction of political, ethical and 
theological readings rather than of the classic prose and 
poetry of his mother tongue. In the departments first 
named he was eminently versed. Few men stood more in- 
telligently upon clear and well defined principles, or could 
maintain themselves with larger resources of fact and force 



32 

of argument. He was hardly less a theologian than a law- 
yer. In politics he was a Federalist of the school of Wash- 
ington, and thus he lived and died, without " shadow of 
turning.'" He was a valiant champion of the elder Adams 
till he made terms and entered into social fellowship with 
his arch enemy and unscrupulous maligner, Thomas Jeffer- 
son. Thenceforward he held him in unspeakable contempt. 
He profoundly despised John Quincy Adams after his early 
treason to his father by joining hands with Mr. Jefferson in 
politics. 

In theology he was aCalvinistof the Edwards school, and 
was earnest for that faith as embodied and represented in 
the orthodox congregational creeds. From his middle life 
to his death he was a professing, earnest, and sincere Chris- 
tian — contributing, largely of his means and his personal 
efforts to all enterprises judiciously adapted to the spread 
and prevalence of the religion of the Bible. He gave to 
his parish the site for the meeting-house and the parsonage. 
He was a strong pillar and a faithful worker in the Church 
of which he was a member, and very efficient in staying up 
the hands of the ministry. He participated freely in the 
conference and prayer-meetings. 

He was a corporate member of the American Board 
for Foreign Missions from the year 1818. He was one 
of the founders, and for many years, was President of 
the Vermont Bible Society. He was also Vice President 
of the American Bible Society, and of the American Edu- 
cution Society. He was also one of the early members, 
and most interested patrons of the American Colonization 
Society. • 



33 

Mi*. Marsh was an intelligent and faithful patron of sound 
Learning, and was recognized as such at an early period of 
his life. In 1809 he became a member of the Board of 
Trustees of Dartmouth College, and held the place for forty 
years, and till he was removed by death. Be came into the 
Board at an important epoch in the history of that institu- 
tion. The administration of the President, John Wheelock, 
who had then held the office for thirty years, was causing 
great concern to some of the Trustees. Yet the majority 
was, as their predecessors had been, subservient to the views 
and wishes of the President — giving a formal and unques- 
tioning assent and ratification to all his policy and practical 
measures. As the son. heir, and successor of Dr. Eleazer 
Wheelock, the founder and first President of the College, 
he conceived, and was apparently acting upon the idea, that 
although, under the charter, the College was a public elee- 
mosynary corporation, yet it was in reality a corporation 
sole, and he was the sole corporator. His course of admin- 
istration in reference to all its interests seemed to indicate 
that he regarded it as really a private foundation, in the 
benefits of which the public might share under such a practi- 
cal governance as to him should seem meet, and that it was 
his right to subordinate the public interests to his own per- 
gonal views and purpose-. Judge Elijah Paine, of this 
State, had become a Trustee in L806. lie and some other 
of the Trustees were disposed to change that course and 
tendency of the Presidential administration. Mr. Marsh 
added to their aumber, and gave the preponderance against 
the policy and course of the President. Measures were 



34 

adopted and events were in train that, by gradual progres- 
sion, culminated in 1815 in the dismissal of the President 
from his office. In the meantime, and following thereupon, 
through the . instrumentality of the President, aided by his 
partisan friends, the interposition of the Legislature was 
secured, and the College, under the charter, was supplanted 
by a University under a legislative act of incorporation. 
Thereupon ensued scenes of controversy, attended with more 
or less of warlike demonstrations and violence, which gave 
occasion for, and resulted in, the famous " Dartmouth Col- 
lege Case." 

At an early day, and from time to time, this State had 
been a larger pecuniary benefactor to the College than even 
the State of New Hampshire. The town of Wheelock, in 
1785, was donated to the College by act of our State Legis- 
lature ; and there were several other smaller grants of land. 
This State then, as it ever since has, furnished a considerable 
proportion of the students to the College, — now indeed 
furnishing about one-fourth of the entire number in the College 
proper. In those days, Vermont was deemed to be worthy 
and entitled to have an influential and efficient representation 
in the Board of Trustees. Such men as Nathaniel Niles, 
Stephen Jacob, Elijah Paine, Charles Marsh, and Samuel 
Prentiss were her representatives. The first four were for 
many years members at the same time. Judge Paine, Mr. 
Marsh, and Judge Prentiss were members together for some 
years. The quota of Vermont is now reduced to one. The 
first four were members during all the period of the origin, 
progress, and culmination of the great controversy ; and they 



35 

were of the ruosl active and mosl effective in currying it 
through in a successful triumph for the College, as againsl 
the removed President and the University. 

T had hoped to be able on this occasion to develope with 
considerable particularity and fulness the position and part 
that Mr. Marsh maintained in thai matter. But 1 must 
content myself with saying, in brief, that he was the leading 
brain and pen of that Hoard in the conduct of the warfare 
in behalf of the College. In professional learning and 
ability he was eminently superior to any other member of 
the Board during that period. His pen for attack and 
defence was the most pointed and powerful. His fearless 
and uncompromising firmness, and his vigor of action in 
behalf of what he deemed the right, when great princi- 
ple- of law and morals, and great public and personal 
interests were involved, distinguishingly fitted and desig- 
nated him as a foremosl man in such a conjuncture in the 
affairs of the College. I have in ray possession the printed 
•• Vindication of the Trustees" in answer to the •• Sketches" 
and the •• Review" of the sketches, covering eighty-two 
pages of large octavo, with an appendix of twenty-two 
pages more, which evinces the point and power of Mr. 
Marsh's pen. 

I have also in my possession copies of letters to Mr. 
.Marsh from the eminent counsel, by whom the cause of the 
College v. a- argued before the Superior Court of New 

Hampshire and the Supreme Court of the United States — 
Jeremiah Mason, Jeremiah Smith, Daniel Webster, and 
Tho. Hopkinson of Philadelphia, while the litigation was 



36 

in the process of being put on foot in proper form, and 
while it was pending for final argument. These letters 
show that Mr. Marsh held equal rank with them in weight 
of opinion in council, and was relied upon by them in devis- 
ing and carrying forward the measures that would bring the 
subject matter of the controversy to a material and decisive 
issue for the judgment of the law thereupon. As he did not 
participate in the final arguments in either of the courts, of 
course his name was not heralded by the published reports 
of " The Dartmouth College Case " ; — a noticeable instance, 
showing how the most momentous and successful exertions 
of eminent professional learning and ability may have no 
public audience, and no " trumpet that sings of fame." 

As before remarked, Mr. Marsh continued to hold his 
place as Trustee till removed by death in 1849. To the 
last years of his life he was active, and exercised a control- 
ling influence in the discharge of the duties of his office. 
I have authentic assurance that, in all matters within the 
province of action by the Trustees, he was individually the 
most pronounced and effective member of the Board. I 
know some instances in the latter years of his office in which 
both President and Professors had, for some imputed delin- 
quency, a moving experience of his personal interposition. 
I dismiss this topic with saying that, next to his family, the 
College was cherished by him as an object of affectionate 
interest to the close of his life. 

As a man in his individual personality — as a man, indi- 
pendently of, and characterizing him in, his conventional 
position and relations — domestic, social, professional and 
official — he was marked and noteworthy, 



37 

He was tall, more than six fret. of a well proportioned 
frame, spare of flesh, but not cadaverous — of a fine and 
sensitive nervous and muscular organization — of great 
equipoise and self-control over a temper that was both sus- 
ceptible and strong. Ee was remarkably neat in his person 
and his dress. He always wore a suit of black. His coat 
retained the cut of earlier days and did not vary with the 
changing fashions. Be wore a broad, white neckerchief, 
with his shirt collar folded down over it, and he adhered to 
the ruffled bosom to the last of his life. 

His mind was of the first order in quality and strength — 
quick, active, vigorous, and earnest — and was trained by 

study and use to the most facile action and effort. 

In his moral composition he was equally marked. His 
apprehension of right and wrong had no nimbus of dubiosity. 
The distinction between them in his mind was as by a line of 
fire issuing from an impassable gulf. What was settled in 
his mind as right, was right and nothing else. Though he 
was rapid in his mental and moral processes, lie was rigor- 
ously cautious as to the correctness of his results. He 
endeavored by all his means to be sure that he stood on 
solid premises. He was careful that his reasonings should 
lack no element or feature of sound and legitimate logic, 
nor be turned awry by impertinent influences. Upon his 
conclusions he stood immovably, fearlessly, and maintained 
himself with giant strength against all odds in controversy. 
He enjoyed some advantages in this respect, for he was 
so constituted, tempered and trained, that, provided he 
cured his own self-respect, he made no question with himself 



38 

how others might regard what he thought, or said, or did. 
Though he was not indifferent to the approbation and good 
opinion of others, he would only secure it as it might be ob- 
tained by his acting up to his own moral convictions. 
Hence he was plain and outspoken on all subjects of inter- 
est — public, social, and personal ; and though he was not 
forward or intrusive — though his ordinary bearing in his 
intercourse with those around him was marked by a gentle 
modesty and a quiet gracefulness — still, he never compro- 
mised his opinions, or modified his expression of them, when 
he had occasion to make them known, from any considera- 
tions of social complaisance or of personal delicacy. 

With such clearness and strength of comprehension and 
conviction, it was natural, as was the fact, that he should 
have a kind of imperiousness and impatience of manner 
which would be manifested as occasion should prompt ; and 
often it bore discomfortingly upon those who became the 
objects of it. Still, he was of delicate sensibilities, of a 
placable spirit, and a large, kind, and generous heart. 

Though his manner was controlled and free from boister- 
ousness when he was under the strongest excitement, still 
there was a power in it that told with strange effect. In 
the prosecution of his moral convictions by word and act, 
the emotion of fear as to consequences never seemed to have 
been consciously felt by him. 

There was a period when it was pretty extensively 
thought that the judges of the supreme court were accus- 
tomed in their official administration to show favor to the 
parties and counsel who were of their own political faith, 



39 

and disfavor to those of a different cast. Those judges 
were of a party to which Mr. Marsh did not belong. After 
some supposed experience in this respect, as Mr. Marsh was 
addressing the jury in behalf of a client whose politics were 
obnoxious to the court, he admonished the jury thai the pre- 
siding judge would be likely in his charge to do what he 
could to secure a verdict against his client, — but thai they 
were sworn to find the facts from the evidence, ana* it was 
no part of the judge's province to meddle with that matter 
in his charge, — and in that respect it was their duty to dis- 
regard what the judge might say. The judge interrupted 
him, calling him to account, and intimated that he would 
commit him for contempt. Mr. Marsh quietly turned to- 
wards him, and extending his forefinger somewhat in the 
direction of the judge's uose, said in a suppressed tone — 
" 1 defy you to do it. Your honor dare not do it." The 
judge quailed, and the argument proceeded. 

There was another instance, when Judge Skinner — one 
of the most upright and able of our judges, — was presiding 
in the trial of a cause by jury, in which Mr. Marsh regarded 
it of great importance to make a searching cross-examina- 
tion of an adversary witness. 

As he was proceeding, the judge somewhal impatiently 
interposed, indicating by his manner that he thought Mr. 
Marsh was going beyond the limits of propriety. Ee ex- 
plained to the court the propriety of what he was doing, 
and proceeded with his cross-examination. Soon the judge 
interrupted him again, and again Mi'. Marsh explained, and 
was proceeding as before. Again the judge interposed still 



40 

more pointedly, and with somewhat of menace in his man- 
ner. Mr. Marsh thereupon arose, and, with his arms folded 
across his breast, addressed himself to the judge in a man- 
ner of cool and overmastering fearlessness, amounting al- 
most to defiant boldness, in the assertion of what he deemed 
his right, and said, " I have made known to the court the 
reason of the course I am pursuing. I regard it important 
to the rights and interests of my client that I should be per- 
mitted to proceed. In my long experience in the courts, I 
think I have learned what are my rights, as well as what 
are my duties both towards my client and the court, and I 
have self-respect enough .to insist upon the one and perform 
the other, and I am in no need of being instructed by the 
court as to either. I will thank your honor not to interrupt 
me again while I am undertaking to cross-examine this wit- 
ness." The cross-examination proceeded, and the judge did 
not interrupt him again. The result was that the witness 
was shown from his own mouth to have been false and lying 
in the testimony he had given. 

For one so highly endowed with powers that would have 
enabled him to shine in the high offices of the State and Na- 
tion, and with full consciousness of those powers, he was 
most remarkably free from that cast of ambition which almost 
uniformly inspires such men with a desire for such offices. 
He never held but two offices depending on the popular 
vote. He was member of the 14th Congress (1815-1817). 
He was nominated against his will and protest, and after he 
had left Montpelier, where had assembled several self-com- 
missioned leading politicians to designate a candidate. He 



41 

did Qot heed instructions in his official action, bul voted ac- 
cording to the dictates of his own judgment in the discharge 
of his sworn public duty. Among other things thai were 
savory to his constituents, he voted in favor of compensal 
the members of Congress by an annual salary of $1. 
He was inn again elected. He would have been likely to 
make a still poorer show in securing popular favor in these 
later times, when the crowning merit of a public represent- 
ative is deemed to be, thai he is but the echo of the \ 
of his constituents. The other office was that of member of 
the Council of Censors in L813. 

Although conscious of his powers and ability, he was not 
sell-seeking. He exercised, as it were, a judicial judgment 
upon the comparative merits of others and himself, and 
accorded toothers the full measure of their dues, [n I 
too, he was controlled by his delicate and uncompromi 
sense of right and propriety in all matters touching public 
and personal interests, as involved in, and affected by the 
holding and administration of public office. While his father 
was chief judge of the county court, it was the province of 
that court to appoint the state's attorney. That office, upon 
the solicitation of the l.ar. was tendered to him. He de- 
clined to accept it. for the reason thai he deemed it improper 
for him to hold it while his father was presiding judg< 
the court from which he would have received the appoint- 
ment, and in which he would have to act in performing his 
official duties. 

The office of chief judge of the supreme court was ten- 
dered to him at the time •Nathaniel Chipman, in L813, was 
6 



42 

restored to that position. I once asked Mr. Marsh why he 
did not take it. He said that, while such a man as Nathan- 
iel Chipman was available for the place, he should have 
been so ashamed of himself if he had consented to take it, 
that he should not have been able to hold up his head in the 
face of the public. That was a weakness not very preva- 
lent at any period. I think cases of it have not been re- 
cently known. 

I may here with propriety remark that there existed be- 
tween Mr. Marsh and Chief Judge Chipman a very cordial 
and intimate friendship. I know of no man for whom Mr. 
Marsh felt a more profound reverence and esteem. 

What has thus been shown of Mr. Marsh illustrates what 
was true in fact, that he was very little affected in his judg- 
ment and action by considerations of personal favor to 
himself, to be secured by catering to popular sentiment, or 
cultivating popular eclat. Though he had great respect for 
the intelligent and considerate judgment of others, he had 
nOnc for the spasmodic and zealous demonstrations of parti- 
san popular sentiment. He regarded the vote of majorities 
as a very uncertain and unstable test or evidence either -of 
the right or the expedient in religion, or in morals, or in 
politics. And the eclat achieved by securing the shout and 
song of mere popular applause he regarded with supreme 
contempt. No considerations in that respect were ever sup- 
posed to have affected his own views, expressions, or actions 
upon any subject in any relations of life. 

His entire, uncalculating, unselfish and fearless indepen- 
dence gave him great weight of influence in all matters in 



43 

which the action of others was to be based upon, and con- 
trolled by, an intelligent judgment, led to a result by the le- 
gitimate and substantia] reasons of the thing. 

While Mr. Marsh was neither waggish nor droll, he 
nevertheless had a keen and ready wit, which laughed in 
genial humor, or wounded with a purposed stroke, as occa- 
sion might call it into exercise. His faculty of drawing the 
ludicrously grotesque as well as of limning the repulsive 
and detestable in conduct and character, has probably not 
been equalled in the State. 

UK pupil and partner, and life-long neighbor and friend, 
the late Eonorable Norman Williams, was accustomed to 
recount instances in illustration in both directions. But 
time forbids that 1 should recite them. 

I lieu- pardon for obtruding one that fell under my own 
observation. An important cause in chancery came on for 
argument at a term of the Supreme Court in 1841. The 
court was composed of Williams. Chief Judge, Royce, 
Redfield, and Bennett. Mr. Marsh was counsel for the 
defendant. He had seated himself at the table, folded his 
paper, and selected his pen for the purpose of taking 
notes of the argument to which he expected to reply. As 
the orator's counsel commenced, Mr. Marsh, with pen in 
hand, was ready to make his notes. After maintaining his 
position for awhile, and finding no occasion to use his pen. 
he laid it down, and settling back in his chair, with his 
head dropped upon his right shoulder, he was quietly enjoy- 
ing his pinch of snuff. At the end of about thirty minutes. 
the advocate made a brief pause. On starting anew, in a 



44 

tone and emphasis peculiar to himself, he said, — "And now, 
your honors, I am going to suggest one idea." " Are 
you? " interjected Mr. Marsh. " Stop, let me take it down," 
in the most quizzical tone of mock sincerity, at the same 
time, with a nervous motion, catching up his pen and put- 
ting himself in position, he sat intent to catch the forth- 
coming " one idea." The scene was so comical in the 
manner in which Mr. Marsh interloped upon the unwary 
advocate — his voice and motions, and the expression- of his 
face, that all the judges and all the lawyers — the advocate 
excepted — incontinently burst into a spontaneous and hearty 
laugh. The laughter subsiding, the advocate went on, — 
Mr. Marsh for awhile retaining his position, ready for the 
promised idea. After continuing thus for some minutes, he 
dropped his pen, and setiled back with a kind of sigh of 
disappointment, saying in a most deprecatory tone, "Ah, a 
false alarm after all"; again provoking a merry laugh. 
He found no further use for his pen during the residue of 
the argument. 

Chief Justice Williams once said to me that Mr. Marsh 
wielded the most powerful weapon of severity of any man 
he ever knew. I have heard others, who knew him well, 
make substantially the same remark. And what was quite 
peculiar, his most agonizing strokes were administered with 
entire quietness of manner, with suppressed voice, and in 
language of rigorous ehasteness. He scarified, and flayed, 
and slaughtered with a polished weapon. But woe to the 
person on whom it fell. 



t5 

Judge Hutchinson, in speaking to me <A' Mr. Marsh, said 

that he had the most w lerful faculty of making any 

body appear contemptible, of any person he ever knew. 
Said the Judge, — 

"Once when I was State's Attorney a man was indicted for 
stealing hay >n\\ of his neighbor's barn. The case came on for 
trial, and Mr. Marsh defended the accused. 1 introduced as a 
witness an entirely credible man. who testified fully all aboul it, — 
thai he saw the respondenl go into the barn, and then he looked 
through a crack between the boards and saw him pitch down the 
hay and bundle it up and carry it oul of the barn, and then saw 
him go off with it ; and there was no sort of doubl aboul the theft 
having been committed just as the witness testified. Bui when 
Mr. Marsh came to argue the case, he made that witness appear 
so mean and contemptible — peeping through a crack to see his 
neighbor steal hay — thai the jury didn't pay the slightesl atten- 
tion to any thing he had testified, and they broughl in a verdict ><[" 
not guilty." 

Mr. Marsh had been sued by a lawyer of Rutland, who 
was more favorably regarded for his ability than his 
uprightness, on some alleged personal claim. The suit was 
unfounded and vexatious. He went to Rutland al the 
proper time for the purpose of attending the trial, [nstead 
of proceeding to trial, the plaintiff applied for a continu- 
ance, making - a verbal statement of his reasons, and offered 
to put the statement in writing and verily it by his oath. 
Mr. Marsh objected, and stated the -•round- of his objec- 
tion, and closed his remarks by saying: — " 1 bes< h your 

honors to forefend that man from the crime of perjury, by 
imt affording to him either the temptation or the opportunity 
to commit it. as he certainly would do, it' he should make 
oath to the statement he has made to the court." The 



46 

court declined to receive his affidavit, and the cause was 
ended by a judgment for the defendant. 

I should not *be justified in citing further illustrations. 

I quote a paragraph from a memorial sketch, written soon 
after Mr. Marsh's death, by the late President Lord, — one 
of the keenest and most appreciative discerners of the 
quality and character of others that I have ever known. 
His ideas of Mr. Marsh were formed from an intimate per- 
sonal acquaintance of thirty years. 

"His manner was simple and qniet. Except that his eye was 
ever penetrating and searching, he seemed ordinarily in repose. 
But Ins temperament was highly nervous and excitahle. Under 
a strong impulse he was impetuous and severe. He could then 
deal in sarcasm and invective ; and on such occasions one would 
not choose to be the subject of his criticism or the victim of his 
indignation. However, it was not in matters personal to himself 
that Ije was apt to become excited ; but when his cause, his trust, 
his country, or his faith seemed to be in danger. It was his keen 
discernment of truth, his sense of right, his regard for fitness, his 
jealousy for important interests, that made him ready to take 
alarm, and roused his lion spirit. For that reason those who knew 
him took it not unkindly though he sometimes exceeded the limits 
of conventional complaisance, and bore more heavily upon an 
adversary than they would have dared or chosen. They would as 
soon complain of electricity because the lightning sometimes 
strikes. If he took stronger views of the subject that excited 
him than most men, it was because he had a stronger mind, more 
comprehensive of principles and relations, and more prophetic of 
results. If he was sometimes more confident and uncompromis- 
ing, yet who is not when he knows himself is right, and the world 
is wrong. If he stood by his own judgments against the suggestions 
of expediency and policy, yet, if there were no such men, then 
wisdom and virtue would be mere abstractions, of no practical ac- 
count or value in a world that could not otherwise be saved." 

Mr. Marsh was not a politician ; yet he felt a constant 
and absorbing interest in public affairs as affected by na- 



17 

tionaJ ami state Legislation, and by the executive adminis- 
tration of both governments. He was in correspondence 
with leading men at Washington upon subjects of congres 
sional and executive action, and was full and frank in sug- 
gestion, criticism, approval, and ( lemnation. I knew of 

liis writing several Letters, not only to the delegates from 
Vermont, bul to Mr. Webster and Mr. Choate. He was re- 
garded by them, and by many of the eminent men of the 
country in all stations of political and judicial office, as their 
peer, and he commanded their profound regard and respect. 
lie was at times in correspondence with Chancellor Kent. 

Mr. .Marsh was a model gentleman of the old school, and 
of the highest social breeding. With great simplicity of 
manner, he bore himself with a courtly and attractive grace. 
He was familiar with the best form- of society, both in city 
and country, and his baronial family home was the I'n'r re- 
sort of leading families of New England and New York, as 
well as of the poor and the lowly of his own neighborhood. 
Though riches, for the sake of being rich, were no object of 
his ambition or effort, ami though he gave no thought to the 
accumulation of property as an independent and ultimate 
purpose, his very lame and lucrative practice brought a 
large current income, a portion of which was expended in 
the purchase of an extensive real estate constituting his 
farm and homestead. He disposed of portions of that real 
estate from time time, till some four hundred acres were re- 
maining, which, a few year- before his death, he conveyed to 
hi- youngest son, — thereby relieving himself from the burden 
of its management, and making provision for the proper sup- 



48 

port of himself and his wife, in the accustomed family ar- 
rangement, during the residue of their lives. " Beautiful 
for situation " was the house in its grounds and its com- 
manding outlook over the village, and through a wide sweep 
of delightful landscape. It has now become the residence 
of Mr. Frederick Billings, who has enlarged the mansion, 
and is extensively improving the surrounding grounds. All 
the residue of Mr. Marsh's income was currently expended 
in the support and education of Ins family, in maintaining 
the large and generous hospitalities of his home, in dispens- 
ing aid and comfort to needy neighbors and dependents, 
and 'in free contributions to worthy enterprises of religious, 
philanthropic, and social interest. Aside from his real es- 
tate he had no self-accumulating moneyed investments. 

Mr. Marsh was twice married: — first, in 1789, to Miss 
Nancy Collins of Litchfield, Connecticut, by whom he had a 
son and a daughter. That son bore his father's name, and 
was in all his qualities a worthy son of such a sire. He 
was educated at the same college and the same law school 
as his father, and gave sure signs of great eminence if his 
life had been spared ; but he died of consumption in 1817, 
at the age of twenty-seven years. He had settled as a law- 
yer, and had married, in Lansingburg, New York. The 
daughter died some fifteen years ago, the widow of Dr. Bur- 
nell, of Woodstock. Mr. Marsh's first wife died iu 1793. 
His second wife was the widow of Josias Lyndon Arnold, 
who was a large proprietor of lands in St. Johnsbury and 
vicinity, and a part of whose name was given to the town 
of Lyndon. He settled in St. Johnsbury as a lawyer, and 



49 

there died in 1796, aged twenty-eight years. Mrs. Marsh 
was the daughter of \h\ Elisha Perkins, of Plainfield, Con- 
necticut. The family was, and has continued to be, one of 

tin' foremost in social position, and tnosl favorably known 
in Connecticut ami wherever its descendants have been dis- 
persed and settled. As the wife of Mr. Arnold, sin- made 
her wedding tour from her home in her father's household 
to her new home in Vermont on horseback, and for a con- 
siderable distance before reaching St. Johnsbury on a mere 
bridle road cut through otherwise unbroken forests. As 
the wife of Mr. Marsh she was the mother of four sons — 
Lyndon A., George P., Joseph, and Charles, and one 
daughter, Sarah I>., who became the wife of the Hon. 
Wyllys Lyman, late of Burlington, and by him she was the 
mother of a son, who is now holding a commission in the 
United States Army, and of a daughter who is the wife of our 
present distinguished Senator Edmunds. They are the 
only surviving grandchildren of Mr. .Marsh. The son, 
Joseph, and the daughter Mrs. Lyman, died nearly thirty 
years ago. The other sons survive. The second wife died 
in 1853. 

It seems proper to say, that with a wife who was meet for 
him, and was his peer, the family of Mr. Marsh was of con- 
trolling influence in giving form and character to the social 
organization and development of the growing village and 
town. Both of them gave the best of their energies ami 
efforts, and contributed most liberally of their means, in 
devising and carrying forward all plans of policy and action 
that would tend to the upbuilding of a social order that 
7 



50 

should answer to their desires in respect to the place of 
their family home for all the fortunes and experiences of a 
life for themselves and their children. Woodstock in its 
social history is the memorial and witness of the quality and 
manner of their work. The better forms of social life 
throughout the county and the State are not without signifi- 
cance to the same effect. 

Mr. Marsh died at his residence, of an acute inflammation 
of the lungs, after a short but painful illness, on the 11th 
day of January, 1849. His faculties of body and mind had 
not suffered the decay so common to old age. Except that 
their natural force was somewhat abated, they remained 
unimpaired to his last sickness, and in that his mind was 
clear, strong, and active to his last moments. 

Upon his death, obituary notices of various length and 
fulness were extensively published in the journals of the 
time. I have alluded to one, very full, discriminating and 
just, by President Lord. I have the copy of another, 
printed in the National Intelligencer, at Washington, and 
supposed to be from the pen of Judge Phelps, who was then 
Senator in Congress. 

But I must close this long and inadequate paper ; and I 
do so by repeating in substance what I penned many years 
ago on the same subject. 

To apprehend and appreciate the true measure and worth 
of the man, it is essential to hold in mind the character and 
condition of the field in which he began and prosecuted the 
work of his life of manhood. In his beginnings Vermont 
was known by a bad, rather than a good, name — rather as 



51 

the asylum of rogues and refugees from justice, than, as 
now. as the model ami proverb of virtue, intelligence, pros- 
perity, and happiness. The territory was wild and rugged. 
Only the germinal elements of society existed. Government 
was in embryo. Judicature and jurisprudence were crude, 
fragmentary, and inadequate. Education in literature, 

ace and art, had no footing in the State. The maturing 
of a complete form of constitutional government — of an 
ample and well adjusted system of statutory and judicial 
law — of an orderly and upright administration of justice ; 
the devising and sustaining and rendering effectual of the 
early measures that have resulted in our established and 
controlling religion, in the general intelligence and higher 
education of the people, and in the good order and refine- 
ment of society, are of the work and fruits of the life, 
efforts, and influence of .Air. Marsh ami his associates of 
kindred spirit, ability, and worth. If he had chosen his 
field of action in some of the important towns in the older 
States of New England, he would have heen known as Par- 

3, Gore, Story, Mason, and Smith have heen, and still are 
known. Ili^ fame would have been more on the tongues of 
men. in the public journals, and the printed hooks. Under 
the fortunes and lot of his life, Vermont, in the besl features 
of her history, in character and position, is an eloquent and 
enduring memorial of his life, and services, and worth. 



APPENDIX. 



Steuben villi:. September 26, L870. 
Dear Sir: — I have jusl received a letter from my cousin, 
Charles Marsh, of Woodstock, asking for you some information 
as to my grandfather, Joseph Marsh, of Hartford, Vermont. 1 
wrote to him on the -!-">d of September, L869, giving him such in- 
formation as I had from conversations in the family respecting my 
grandfather until his death in February, 1811. (Thai lettei 
been mislaid.) I was eighteen years and sixteen days old when 
he died, and had lived iii the same family with him — being t he 
oldest son of Daniel Marsh, who was the second son of Joseph. 
My grandfather was what is called a reticent man. He spoke 
only incidentally of the events of his life. What I learned 
of Ins participation in public affairs was mostly from conver- 
sations between him and old men of his own age who visited 
him, and with whom he talked familiarly of the events in which 
they had participated. He was colonel of a regimenl of militia 
of the New Hampshire Grants. The sudden movements al Hub- 
bardton prevented his being there. I am certain from hearing 
him, Judge Paine of Williamstown, Major Bailey of Weathers- 
field, I think, also, his brothers, Ahel and Elisha Marsh, and 
his oldest son Joseph, all speak of the battle of Bennington as 
an event in which they had a share— thai they were there. I 
have also heard them and my father, who was a younger man, 
often speak of camp life whilst the regimenl guarded the river to 
prevent Burgoyne's retreal and cul off supplies from reaching 
him. The Rev. Lyman Potter, of Norwich, was chaplain of the 
regiment. He removed Wesl aboul 1801 or l s n-j. and settled 

three miles (p. Mil liel'c. oil the former residence of LogaU, the 

Mingo Chief. We became intimate after 1820, and he often spoke 
of my grandfather, of whom he was an admirer, and of early 
events, and of the war. He was at Bennington, and in the camps 

at Whitehall, Fort Ann, Tort Edward, and Sandy Hill. Alter 



54 

Mr. Potter's death, my grandfather's papers came into my hands, 
and amongst them I found Mr. Potter's receipt to my grandfather 
as colonel for his pay as chaplain of the regiment, upon which, 
and souie evidence obtained at Norwich, his widow obtained a 
pension. 

My grandfather's book-learning was very limited, but he was 
by no means ignorant. I have often heard him say that he never 
went to school but one month in his life, — but he always added, 
in speaking of it to his family, that there were other ways of ac- 
quiring knowledge. He was not an indiscriminate reader, and in 
his latter years he read but little. He had a tenacious memory, 
and what he read he made his own. He had a close logical mind, 
and he excelled in acquiring knowledge from conversation as well 
as in imparting it. His conversation was the most interesting I 
ever listened to. It was never trifling. His temper was equable. 
He was kind, never irritable, and all children loved him. His 
politics were of the pure Washingtonian school, in which he 
trained all his family. 

If his charity ever fell short, it was towards a man who spoke 
disrespectfully of Washington. He was a sincere, earnest Chris- 
tian, but was free from bigotry. When I was fifteen years old, he 
used his influence successfully to have his grandchildren — about 
twenty around him — attend a dancing-school. I remember how 
he reproved his brother deacon, Clark — who was a very bigoted 
man. Whilst they were earnestly debating the matter, deacon 
Clark, being fond of music, beat time with his foot to a fiddle that 
old Peter, a black man, was playing in the kitchen. He silenced 
the deacon by boldl}- charging him with dancing. 

In person, my grandfather was of large stature and of good pro- 
portion. As tall at least as Lyndon, he was broad-shouldered, 
large boned, lean, of great muscular power. His weight was over 
two hundred pounds. I have seen him do things at eighty years 
old that none of his descendants could do. He wore small clothes 
and the triangular hat. He was a bold and graceful horseman. 
He kept a chaise, but he never used it when he rode alone. 

Much of the original surveys of Hartford, Pomfret, Woodstock, 
and Barnard, were made by him. 

As I have thus described him, he rests in my remembrance. It 
would be strange if I were not partial to his memory. 

Truly, EOSWELL MAKSH. 

Hon. James Barrett. 



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